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Review: ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ Spins a Bold, Distinctive Web
December 12, 2018Ben MK
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Superhero team-ups are nothing new — but what if the superheroes teaming up were one and the same, just from different parallel universes? That's the premise behind Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse. In the feature-length animated take on everyone's favorite wall-crawler, Peter A. Parker (Chris Pine) is dead. But in his place, a new successor has been unwittingly chosen. Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is just you average Brooklyn teen, but when he's bitten by the same kind of radioactive arachnid that gave New York City its web-slinging protector, he finds himself in the awkward position of having to live up to the oft-quoted phrase, "With great power comes great responsibility." Luckily for Miles, he's not alone, for he soon gains a reluctant mentor in the form of Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson), an alternate version of Spider-Man who's been sucked into Miles' universe from his own parallel timeline 12 years in the future. Now, along with some help from four other Spider-heroes — Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage) and Spider-Ham (John Mulaney) — Miles and Peter must stop Wilson Fisk aka The Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) from causing a rift in the space-time continuum, as The Kingpin attempts to use a super collider to reunite with his late wife and son. Moviegoers would be right to wonder, however, "What makes Into the Spider-Verse special?" After all, this is essentially Sony's fourth big screen take on the friendly neighborhood web-slinger, not to mention the fact that we have yet to see the last of Tom Holland's popular rendition of the character. It turns out that not only does the film exceed expectations, it easily surpasses them by leaps and bounds. In part, this is due to Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman's script, which playfully acknowledges the existence of the previous Spider-Man movies while also fitting them into a brand new mythos that viewers haven't seen before. However, a fair amount of credit is also owing to the film's unique visual style, which is bold, bright and colorful, serving to keep audiences thoroughly entranced all the way to the end credits. Suffice to say, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse does not disappoint. In fact, it's one of the best — if not the best — versions of the iconic character to swing into multiplexes, and its one-of-a-kind, distinctive take on Spider-Man illustrates just how amazing superhero movies can truly be when filmmakers think outside the box. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse releases December 14th, 2018 from Sony Pictures. The film has an MPAA rating of PG for frenetic sequences of animated action violence, thematic elements, and mild language. Its runtime is 1 hr. 57 min. |
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